But with all this intensely anti-clerical feeling, the mass of the people are untouched by modern scepticism, and are deeply and sincerely religious. Their religion is simple in the extreme: many would call it gross superstition, but such as it is, it suits their stage of intellectual development and undoubtedly has a considerable effect on their conduct. To represent the Spanish working man--as the Church newspapers always do--as an atheist and an anarchist, only to be restrained by force from overthrowing the social order, merely proves how completely ignorant the Clericalists are of his real character. RACIAL AND CLASS DIVISIONS CHAPTER I RACIAL AND CLASS DIVISIONS The relations between rich and poor, between rulers and ruled, between employers and employed, in Spain are peculiar and not easy to understand. The immediate dependents of a well-to-do family are allowed a freedom of manner and intercourse which is incomprehensible to English exclusiveness, and a sense of responsibility for their dependents, and especially for those who have rendered long domestic service, is almost universal among employers. Thus there is hardly a family of means that does not, as a matter of course, support for the rest of their lives one or more of the wet-nurses who brought up the children; and during the famine in Andalusia a few years ago, most, if not all, of the landowners continued to pay, to the limit of their means, the wages of their permanent labourers, although owing to the drought no field work could be done for months. But with all this very real generosity towards those with whom they are brought in contact, the rich have no corporate or class sense of responsibility for the working classes, and make no effort to understand or provide for their needs as a whole. Spaniards are liberal in alms-giving, and every good Catholic gives doles on one day of the week to his or her regular pensioners; but there is no public provision for the destitute, and it is not in the least realised that an organised system of poor relief would be less costly, and certainly far less demoralising, than the haphazard distribution of pence to all and sundry. It is true that in some towns benevolent societies are carrying on good work according to their means, but these, consisting only of voluntary gifts, are not sufficient to do more than touch the fringe of the poverty produced by the conditions of the country.